When I picked it up for a holiday read, I didn’t realise that The Key would fit in with my spies theme so well. It’s another story about secrets slowly being unwrapped, but these ones are inside a marriage, and they concern the body of a woman.
Two diaries, side by side, tell the story of a man’s sexual exploitation of his wife – in a most unusual way*. There are a lot of doubles in this story, and a lot of muddled visions. Even assuming, as I did when reading, that neither the husband or wife were telling the full truth, quite prepared me for the ending.
It is an unsettling and intimate read.
*Perhaps I’m sheltered, but I think it’s a fairly unusual way of going about this type of business.
Cannonball Read V 
Could you tell me a little more about the book? What is the setting? Was it translated from Japanese?
It’s set in mid-20th century Japan, and is translated from the Japanese.